A robot has helped surgeons to remove a brain tumour from a 21-year-old woman in Canada in what is thought to be the first operation of its kind in the world.

The doctors used remote controls and an imaging screen similar to those of a video game to guide the two-armed device through Paige Nickason’s brain during the nine-hour operation last week.

Surgical instruments acting as the hands of the robot – called NeuroArm – provided surgeons at the University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine with the tools needed to remove the egg-shaped tumour.

Ms Nickason, a chef and mother of a two-year-old boy, had the surgery last Monday and was home by Wednesday. She underwent conventional surgery two months ago to remove a tumour the size of a small fist in the back of her brain. This time she was offered the robotic surgery to operate on a tumour that was affecting her sense of smell – a vital sense for a chef.

Until now automatic devices have carried out brain biopsies – taking tissue samples – but there has never been a machine that performs surgery.

NeuroArm has the distinct advantage of being able to move in smaller increments than a surgeon’s hand.

Typically, the human hand can steady itself and move in increments of one or two millimetres. NeuroArm can move in increments of 50 microns – or millionths of a metre.

The university already has other patients lined up to undergo similar surgery.

Garnette Sutherland, professor of neurosurgery, said: “Paige’s brain surgery represents a technical achievement in the use of image-guided robotic technology to remove a relatively complex brain tumour. Everything went like clockwork.”

Professor Sutherland added that robots could not fully compete yet with the dexterity of a person, although he believes that this will change. “The hands of a brain surgeon have their limitations. They get tired and there are places in the brain where we cannot go that the robot will reach,” he said.

“This is not just a gimmick. It is a fact that robots are as accurate and sometimes more accurate than surgeons and so it’s logical to let them get on with doing brain surgery under the direction of the surgeon.

“We didn’t expect to find such a complicated tumour until we cut into Paige’s skull. The tumour was wrapped around nerves and other tissue and it would have been very difficult for a surgeon to remove.

“This holds out the hope that we can get rid of many brain cancers completely using surgery.”

It is believed that neurosurgeons in Oxford and Cambridge would like to acquire the £500,000 NeuroArm device, but would probably have to buy it through a private donation.

Ms Nickason has neurofibromatosis, a disease that causes benign tumours to form on nerves and which can affect the senses. When asked how she felt about being operated on by a robot, she said: “It was scary at first, but I really trust my doctors and know they would keep me safe.”

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